u/Jew_of_house_Levi

Comparatively, and I'm looking for interesting perspectives

You can, as a normal person, live a perfectly ideal life. You will end up in the world to come. Conversion just isn't right for 99.99% of people and that's ok.

There's a couple of small moments that I think really help sell the show in meaningful ways, like the basic concept of "actions having consequences" and "if the empire comes you're in trouble."

What does the show do better in your eyes?

I've seen this range from a complete divorce of Judaism and public policy, to believing that Judaism and only support a given partisan platform. Where do you draw the line?

Some Judaism specific commandment that you want to perform, but for whatever reason, haven't done so yet?

Sorry, the alliteration started growing on me.

This is a an admittedly touchy subject that's trying to be more precise on religious performance difference between different Jewish denominations. Crudely, this gets framed often as "Reform Jews aren't religious," or "Haredi Jews are shut in people only focused on Torah," and I'm hoping to replace that with a more fair discussion that speaks to where people and movements are.

Specifically, there's a couple of factors I want to look at:

1. Thinking of religious rituals and activities as performance, to encompass a wider range of conscious activities done in the name of Judaism, and also the actions avoided in that same spirit.

2. Acknowledging religious performance is a distribution, with huge variations between individuals in action even in relatively small subcategories.

3. Thinking of religious performance as a good with a demand, that you have to pay some cost, sometimes literal, sometimes physical, sometime just mental, to achieve your stated demand. This is a value-agnostic metric, not judging people with different demands, just trying to document.

With that stated, I think this more precisely illuminates that there are significant difference in the average denominational demand for religious performance. The amount of non-Orthodox with daily prayer services.

I think it's worth sitting with that, because this is outside the direct theological claims made of each denomination. As far as I understand, reform Judaism, for example, does not state that there's an ideal amount of religious performance, only that it should be meaningful to the individual who does it. This seemingly manifests in a self-sorting, where lower religious performance demand individuals tend to adopt Reform Judaism as their identity.

I don't think this is groundbreaking or that insightful, just something worth being precise about.

Reflecting on this Tisha B'av, I'm struck with the thought that it is perhaps one of the more accessible "holidays" of the Jewish calendar.

For a beginner who is just coming to learn about Judaism, I think it offers a number of more welcoming features. The topic of exile from our land is core to the overall picture of Judaism. Listening to Eicha itself is not a challenge, and you're encouraged to take time to read commentary as you go through the long list of kinnot.

The emotion itself, mourning and despair, is itself one of the most accessible and easily understood feeling, which makes Tisha B'av exceptionally beginner friendly.

Other rituals, like avoiding sitting on chairs, are relatively easy to adopt. Fasting is a challenge, but no one is there looking over your shoulder.

So yeah, if you're a beginner and want to learn more, I would encourage finding yourself a Tisha B'av service.

I understand that under the framework of anarchism, much of the ills of society are attributed to various centralized and hierarchical system, which anarchism would seek to abolish.

How would anarchists responds to the challenge of cultish abuse? Specifically, cultish abuse tends to happen in small, close knit communities where the power dynamics are difficult to spot, and yet very much present.

Statists have a wide range of tools, with police welfare checks, mandatory reporters, centralized power structures that will be more powerful than any given cultic figure, and more. And while I think there's a lot to criticize on how statists use their power of coercion, I don't know how a anarchist community would do better, with decentralization and lesser overall tools at their disposal.

Is there a response here, or would anarchists accept that this is a tradeoff for living in an overall better society?

ok so it's that time of the year and at this point you should be aware of the dangers of sinas chinam. it's bad stuff, 9/10 doctors recommend against it.

sooooo, i'm here to sell you guys on Paid Sinas. No more free giveaways of hatred. be a paid hater

Positives, as in the do's, or else the do not (like murder, theft) would dominate (I hope)

everyone's talking about how there's no good Jewish representation, so I'm curious to read what we think would look good

so my wife, as part of her job, sees some of the more, uh, "creative" nonprofits and initiatives in the Jewish community.

this rabbit hole goes DEEP. What's the strangest nonprofit you've seen the Jewish community?

My natalism is hugely religious-based. For those not religious or part of a religious community, what made you decide that natalism is important to you?

yes im BACK and here to continue to spread NEGATIVITY

actually though let's here the worst dvar torah, vort, idea, sermon, you've personally heard or read.

i'm expecting great(?) things

I've seen it compared to everything from the Arizona Traffic Code to Reddit

What's your favorite Analogy to describe the Talmud?

...I want to talk about my own experience. As you can see from my tag, I love to learn and talk about Bircas Kohanim. I've spent literal years at this point reflecting on the sources and learning more and more about it. I probably know the topic way, way better than the average person.

So, I thought, it might be worthwhile to read what the Zohar has to say on Bircas Kohanim. After all, that's the roadmap - you learn the Bible, commentaries, and then you can graduate to more mystical sources.

I could not get the Zohar. It's treatment of Bircas Kohanim was different from how other sources speak of it, and beyond that, I could not grasp the internal structural the Zohar was speaking about. Clearly, for as much as I have learned, I could only glimpse at the vast gulf between me and understanding the Zohar on this relatively small area of Judaism. It was humbling and made me appreciate my Rabbis who clearly knew so much more than I.

So, for those who are interested in just jumping into the Zohar, without any preresquite studying, without years of mentor-student relationships and schooling, I have to ask - why? What are you getting out of reading some english intrepretation over a topic you don't have familiarity with?

For those Kabbalah-curious, let this be your warning: If you read the Zohar without preparation, your interpretations and understandings will be more reflective of you than the actual words on the page.

In my own experience, the synagogues I've been to have been largely very encouraging of children being present, even to the extent of tolerating noisy children (meaning, there's a lot of grace given that a child will calm and quiet down before there's a direct expectation for the parent to take their child out.

What's the policy in your house of worship?

Context on this question: I'm coming from a traditional Jewish background, and I occasionally hear claims of Jews asserting le to meaningfully integrate Buddhism into their Jewish practice in a way that makes them Buddhist, too. I'm somewhat skeptical of this, but I realize I know very, very little on Buddhism, so I've come here to ask:

What makes someone a "Buddhist in good standing"? Meaning, there's got to be some theological claims of Buddhism that represent a "border" of some kind, that if you believe and practice, it means you're a Buddhist, and if not, you're not really a Buddhist. What are those beliefs/practices? What would "disqualify" a person, if anything?

Having grown up in a Jewish environment, I tend to have a poor sense of when a ritual is more or less a "standard" religious practice, versus when there's a ritual that's really completely unique to Judaism. What's your favorite example of a completely unique Jewish ritual?